Let's See How Far We've Come

This is another show I was introduced to fairly recently. I grew up with a dim perception that some friends of mine watched "Queer as Folk", but I was never too curious about it and, at bottom, it didn't seem like it was "for me". After slogging through "The L Word" a couple years back, it only made sense at some point to watch the show that "The L Word" and others can credit its existence to.

At the outset, "Queer as Folk" and "The L Word" are the same show; it follows a group of gay 20-30-somethings in Pittsburgh who spend their time...being gay, mostly. As one of the first mainstream pieces of queer television, it puts itself out there in a way that seems abrasive and downright campy now. But between the year 2000 and 2015, so much has changed in terms of how the gay community functions in the U.S; "Queer as Folk", in that sense, acts like a time capsule for what it was like to be gay in conservative America.

Being a soap opera, "Queer as Folks" answers for inquiring minds stretches the boundaries of logic several dozen times over the course of the show, but you're not watching this show because it's smart or insightful. You're watching this show because it promises you a damn good time. And, mostly, it damn well delivers one.

"Drunk as Folk": The Rules

We drank cosmopolitans while playing our test round, a dated yet fun drink that perfectly captures the spirit of the show. If you consider yourself more of a Brian Kinney than an Emmett Honeycutt, you could opt for whiskey or cheap beer. But really ask yourself: what does your soul want to get wasted on?

Cosmos: for the fabulous soul.

Easy Mode1. Drink for Title Drops: That's every time you see or hear the full title, "Queer as Folk".2. Drink when they drink.3. Drink for daddy issues.4. Drink when someone says the words "gay", "lesbian", or "homosexual".5. Drink if people have sex. Drink again if one of those people is Brian.6. Drink when you see dancing men. Not for each individual dancing man, that would be ridiculous, but once per scene when this happens. And it happens a lot.7. Drink when someone takes illegal drugs or mentions illegal drug usage.

Medium ModeAll the above rules apply. Also...1. Title drops: Drink when someone says the word "queer".2. Drink for stronger homophobic slurs. Brian likes to call lesbians "munchers".3. Drink for references to porn or masturbation. Boys.4. Drink when a gay person compares himself or other gay people to straight people. I'll explain this a little more later.5. Drink for film or television references. You should be able to name the movie or TV show.

Hard ModeAll the above rules apply. Also...1. Drink for allusions to superheroes or superpowers. Our main character is a comic geek, before it was cool.2. Drink for fundraising or awareness-raising of any kind.3. Drink for angry shouting.4. Drink when you see a man in drag.

It may be hard to believe, but that's not actually Jackie O on the far right!

The Players

Our players for this game are...

Krissy Pappau: Hates that she likes this show (Medium)Pooh Daddy: Token gay man (Easy)Some Guy: Token straight man (Medium)Bride of Buggerlas: Glitter Queen (Medium)Big Moose: Living in a completely different show (Hard)

Mean as Folk

Let me tell you a story, to illustrate the profound difference between my social group and the social group you see on "Queer as Folk".

About halfway through our first episode, episode 103 "No Bris, No Shirt, No Service", we got a glimpse of Babylon, the most popular gay club on Liberty Avenue, for the first time. It was awesome. Between the dancing shirtless men (drink), the illicit sex in the back room (drink), and the tendency to attract people the characters least want to see, Babylon is THE hotbed of dramatic action in "Queer as Folk". You just can't get that kind of heat and passion at Woody's or Liberty Diner.

Although you can find shiny shirts and other ridiculous fashion choices inside all three.

Bride of Buggerlas was floored by the obscene decadence of this club. She turned to Pooh Daddy and asked, in all innocence, "Is this what the inside of the Meatpacking District looks like? I don't know why I'm asking like they'd let you in..."

If literally anyone else said those words, it would sound like an insult. As it was, we burst into laughter, and Bride of Buggerlas erupted into a manic string of apologies. It's so rare for any one of us to say something mean on purpose, that when someone is accidentally mean, it's nothing but hilarious.

The guys on "Queer as Folk" are mean, and not in a cute way. A lot of them really seem to hate each other most of the time. Brian heaps disdain on everyone in equal measure, but Michael, the one we're supposed to sympathize with the most, is often petulant and whiney, especially to his mother Deb who's just trying to be supportive most of the time. Deb's no shirking violet either, though; she can dish out sarcastic and cutting remarks just as well as the rest of them.

Don't mess with her, she played a cop on TV for seven years.

This isn't an unusual thing to see in a television show, but the sheer negativity present in the first season and a half really turned me off to the show for a long time. What's worse is, the writers seem to still want the audience to sympathize with the characters, even when their behavior is exceptionally bad. In the THIRD episode of the series, Brian Kinney interrupts his biological son's bris right before the big event occurs, and afterwards all of his friends toast his bravery and decency. The man crashed a religious ceremony, helped deepen a rift between a long-term lesbian partnership, and did it while painting himself as a champion of decency and fatherhood.

It's the biggest question of the series. Why do we care about Brian Kinney? How is he able to get away with his assholery? I've never bought that being handsome and good at sex was enough to excuse his terrible behavior. From a narrative standpoint, it's simple: without Brian, nothing would get done. Every other character on the show seems content to stew in their own emotions and blame all their problems on outside forces.

"God, stop having feelings! Shut your mouth!" -Big Moose

One thing I will say about "Queer as Folk": no matter how horrible all the characters are to each other, they manage to stay, for the most part, friends. You can't say the same for "The L Word", which contains some of the most toxic TV relationships I've ever seen.

Bride of Buggerlas brought up the question that was on all our minds: "Why can't they make a show about gay people who aren't the fucking worst?"

Interestingly enough, "Queer as Folk" has an answer for that question.

Gay as Blazes

The second episode we watched, #203 "Hypocrisy: Don't Do It", was a breath of fresh air. Even by the second season of the show, the creators were starting to figure out how the characters functioned in their world, what kind of pacing suited the show best, and even what kind of stories could be told. This episode was a much nicer watch than the first, and also introduced the show-within-a-show, "Gay as Blazes".

I can't find a good picture from that episode, so here's Brian and Justin making out instead.

"Gay as Blazes" is a fictional show that depicts a tight-knit group of sophisticated gay men, whose favorite activities seem to be hosting quiet dinner parties and reading Sylvia Plath. They all have respectable jobs, none of them fuck around, and all of the characters are well-adjusted individuals.

Gag me.

No, but seriously, the cast of "Queer as Folk" is split about how to view this show. Many of the characters appreciate that the community is being portrayed in a wholesome, moral light, but Brian in particular finds the show unrealistic and dangerous, rejecting the idea that the best a gay man can aspire to is everything a straight man could want: monogamy and stability.

This debate comes up again and again in the show: can gay men be accepted by society at large without conforming to society's norms? Should gay men allow themselves to want the "straight" ideal, and if so, is a gay man who doesn't want domesticity and true love giving the rest of the community a bad name? It's the thematic question of the show, whether the creators realize it or not, making this episode one of the most important in the series. It's the episode where the show addresses its critics, defends the members of its cast that don't live up to society's moral code, and blatantly takes down the idea of a moral ideal in the first place.

And they look good while doing it!

It's somewhat laughable that the creators of this show seem to be trying to depict ANYTHING that happens during its runtime as "realistic", but I see what they're getting at here. The characters on "Queer as Folk" are human beings. They struggle with their jobs, they make bad romantic decisions, some of them are a little racist (looking at you, Emmett), they get addicted to drugs, they believe people who lie to their faces, they hurt their friends...and life goes on, and they keep getting by, and they try their best to learn from their mistakes. I have to give credit to a show that by the end of its run makes me feel affection for a group of characters I hated when I first met them.

There's something to be said for the flamboyance this show has to offer as well. As a counterpoint, in 2014 HBO premiered its first season of "Looking", a modern take on the young-gay-men-looking-for-love story. Already in the first episode, you can see stark differences between it and its predecessors. The lack of a soundtrack, the muted colors, the naturalistic acting style, even the simple fact that these men regard being gay as just another aspect of their psychological makeup marks "Looking" as an indirect descendent of "Queer as Folk". The characters on "Looking" are all regular dudes, laid back, normal. As Pooh Daddy says, "the focus of the show is not that they're gay."

You know what the biggest criticism is about "Looking"? People think it's boring.

You know what happened to "Looking"? It got cancelled. Last weekend.

Oh Jonathan Groff, one day the world will appreciate you.

"Queer as Folk" only lasted five seasons, granted, but I'm pretty sure the reason it lasted even that long is because people thought it was fun to watch. So there you go. All hail Babylon.

"That is so much glitter, in your mouth!" -Some Guy

Show Me the D

I talked about this show being a "time capsule" earlier, and thinking of it that way, while not excusing the characters, explains a little more about their behavior. Being gay has pretty much always been a rough time, but lots of that stigma has lessened in the recent years. This show premiered in 2000, and already there's a crazy amount of stuff that just would not be an issue right now, at least not everywhere in the U.S.

Michael has a female co-worker who has a huge crush on him and makes no attempt to hide it. He fears that if he tells her he's gay she would tell everyone he works with at the Big Q (think K-Mart) and he would lost his job, so he strings her along and pretends that he is also interested, at least when they're around other co-workers. Michael is obviously an asshat for doing this, and this results in a lot of hurt feelings down the line, but in 2000 he would not have had legal protection at his customer service job. He absolutely could have been fired for his sexual orientation.

After Brian crashes his biological son's bris, the kid's lesbian parents Lindsay and Melanie have a huge fight. Melanie feels sore that Lindsay continues to take Brian's side over hers when they're supposed to be a commited couple. Melanie is making a really big deal out of this, as well she should, but her anger is further compounded by the fact that as her son's biological father, Brian has more legal rights over the kid than Melanie does, even though she is financially and maternally providing for the boy.

Not to pretend that these things don't still happen, but legal and federal protection of the LGBT community has come a long way in fifteen years. However, there's one big prejudice that I see over and over again on this show that has not been eradicated.

The absence of dicks.

Close but no cigar, show.

It takes almost three complete seasons for "Queer as Folk" to feature a single dick, and I am incredibly puzzled by this. I wouldn't be AS puzzled if the show didn't feature Melanie and Lindsay going at it like rabbits every chance they got in full scale, picturesque glory. Which you know what, I'm not a prude, if a show's on an adult network and it wants to throw in some scenes of its lesbian characters having sex, more power to it.

But I have to figure that the main demographic for this show is gay men, and I am pretty sure they would have loved a lot more cock than they actually got. Eventually it happens, but I'm convinced that people must have written letters to Showtime complaining about the sheer lack of stiffies.

And this lack of penile attention continues even today! Think about Game of Thrones. How many breasts do you see in an episode? Enough for me to make it a rule in my drinking game. How many dicks do you see in a SEASON?

THAT DOESN'T COUNT, THAT'S A PROSTHETIC

As a side note, I am fully aware that if you played a drinking game while reading articles on For Your Inebriation, you could make one of the rules "drink every time Krissy mentions dicks". I have no defense. Only hopes and dreams.

The Results

This game went fairly well. Medium Mode made it through at least one and a half cosmos per episode, hard mode probably two (bad idea to drink more than two cosmos, by the way). We thought of some extra rules too, so open your ears and listen.

Drink whenever a gay character pretends to be straight.A bonus drink if they fully commit to doing someone of the opposite sex!Oh yeah, also bisexuality doesn't exist on this show. Womp.

Finish your drink if you see at least one penis.We actually played with this rule during our game, even though I was convinced we wouldn't have to use it. Sure enough, during his Bris, we catch a glimpse of Gus' tiny dongle.Meaning the show showed us a BABY penis before showing us a grown man's.

"It still counts! Size doesn't matter!" -Big Moose

I normally take a little more time before writing about another television show, but a powerful mainstay of the past few years is ending this spring. I think I'm willing to bend my made-up rules a little for the occasion.

You only need one rule: drink when they drink.

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For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). All "Queer as Folk" images are owned by Showtime Entertainment.